Jet Car Stunts iPhone Racing Game That Sets The Bar High

Jet Car Stunts [rating: 5/5]

Jet Car Stunts was released back in 2009 and and received rave reviews and even won many awards from many different sites, so how does it look now? Is it still as good, or is it showing it’s age in an environment where games are getting released every single day of the week!

JCS (Jet Car Stunts) is a simple looking game, it’s large brightly colored graphics are more reminiscent of a children’s day care than a race track but the simplicity and brightness of the graphics help make the game what it is by boiling the game down to the basics of speed, responsiveness and ultimately stunts!

The aim of JCR is to get from point A to point B on crazy race tracks in the fastest time possible using a Formula 1 style car to do so. This car is no ordinary though, as the the name suggests the car has jet capabilities and as such can leap giant chasms in the floating race track to avoid plummeting to it’s death. The beautiful 3D race tracks hang precariously in the sky and between races the camera zooms around them showing them off in all their glory.

Once you are playing the game though the games travels at such speed that a tentative glance around and the track or out across the horizon could easily result in a quick end to your race, or at worse a quick jump back to your last check point. And this is another thing that makes Jet Car Stunts work so well and that is the speed in which you can re-start a whole race or jump back to the previous check point. There are no loading times when this happens, the press of the reset button or an untimely crash will see you re-placed, right side up at the previous check point before you’ve even had chance to say Michael Schumacher. So if on the frustratingly difficult levels the frustration is kept to a minimum thanks to the instant ability to start-over.

And starting over you will do often. Even on some of the early practice tracks you will soon find yourself hurtling of the side of the track or smashing your vehicle in 100’s of pieces, but who said the life of a Jet Car Stunt Driver was ever going to be easy. I often found that it would take a couple of attempts at each track before I could complete it in a mannor that I was happy with and this will depend on whether you want to complete the levels with just bronze medals or go for the gold.

Controlling the Jet Car takes a little getting used to, not because the controls are bad but because you are racing so fast you have to respond to them quickly. The accelerometer controls the steering while an accelerator and reverse/break button are available as virtual buttons on the right side of the screen. Just using these buttons though isn’t going to win you any awards. If you want to go for the gold, and in some cases just complete the level you will need to use the Jet Engine button that gives you a limited burst of jet fuel to power you over the chasms in the track and also the Air Break button that you’ll need to use to slow you down when you land on the other side!

Jet Fuel is limited though so it has to be used wisely, even though it is re-filled at each checkpoint you may find yourself running out of jet fuel in mid air just when you need it most.

There are 3 main games modes, Platforming, Time Trial and Ghost Racing, all of which are great fun. In Platforming you’re aim is to reach the end of the track in one pieces with as few restarts as possible. If you like you can take any number of re-starts to complete the course but the fewer you have the betters and the shinier the medal will be at the end of the race. There are 25 tracks in total to complete spread across 5 difficulty levels from ‘Just Learning’ all the way up to the ‘Impossible’ levels, which I can confirm are impossible!

Just in this mode alone there is enough content to keep you driving for hours and with the the OpenFeint integration allowing you to track your best times against your friends there is even more fun to be had. These times are displayed right alongside each level too so there is no need to go into OpenFeint to see how you match up to your rivals.

Time Trail doesn’t really need an explanation, get to the end of the track in as fast a time as possible to get a medal, simple. The time trials have three difficulty levels and again you can easily compare your best times with those of your OpenFeint friends. And it’s the OpenFeint integration that takes this game to another level altogether.

Click on the OpenFeint button on the Main Menu and OpenFeint opens in it’s normal way allowing you to view leaderboards and achievements as you would expect with any other game. However, with Jet Car Stunts you can not only watch how the other players managed to get around the track fast than you did but you can also race against their ghost.

What makes this all the more entertaining is the speed in which it all happens, click on the video icon and within seconds a video of that race is played, click on the ‘Race Ghost Car’ button that is displayed as you watch the video and you are immediately launched into the race against that ghost car. Not only is this a great option but it has been implemented extremely well.

All in all there is enough content in Jet Car Stunts to keep you playing the game again and again, yes it can be frustrating at times but with the ease of the replay options and minimal load times those frustrations are quickly replaced by the thrill of making the jump, loop, curve or spiral in one piece. If you haven’t spent $2 of your hard earned cash on this great title yet I suggest that it should be the next thing you do.